Many of Beatty's covers recall airbrushed rock albums of the 1970s, but his use of computer-manipulated collage and hand-drawn art, along with his knack for vivid colors and textures, transform that style. Often his work feels hallucinatory, yet it's always grounded in reality and geometry. "Some of it is worked out from the beginning, but a lot of it is process-oriented," he says. "It's the same way I play music-- I just sit down and start drawing or making shapes in the computer, and see where it goes."

You can also hear that intuitive feel in the music of Three Legged Race. Crafted primarily with a Realistic MG-1-- "the Radio Shack version of a Moog synth from the early 80s," Beatty explains-- his work under this moniker was at first somewhat abstract, but lately he's moved toward more melodic territory. Persuasive Barrier, his first full-length coming soon on Spectrum Spools, furthers that direction. "There are a few pieces that are like Martin Denny synth things, with an exotica vibe," he says. "Almost like Library Music, but not directly referencing that stuff." And of course, the cover art is by Beatty himself.

Three Legged Race: "Persuasive Barrier" from forthcoming album on Spectrum Spools:

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We recently asked Beatty to describe the ideas and processes behind some of his recent artwork. He spoke to us by phone from his home in Lexington, KY.

Wooden Wand: Briarwood [Fire, 2011]

RB: I made a cover for a Wooden Wand Hassara record that came out on Three Lobed in 2007, and I've known James for a long time, so I had an idea from the beginning of what would fit with the music. I got a desert vibe for some reason, and I just went with that. I was looking at the John Fahey record America-- the insert is a foldout by this artist named Patrick Finnerty. It's this weird sequential drawing of turtles and snakes in the desert. It almost looks like a comic book, but there's not really any narrative. I've always loved that. So that was a starting point, but I tried taking it in different direction. I started with the snake and the dunes and then filled it out with geometric stuff.

Idiot Glee: Paddywhack [Moshi Moshi, 2011]

RB: James Friley of Idiot Glee is a good friend of mine who lives in Lexington. I helped him record some of the record, and I've been hearing those songs for years. So it was more personal than most of the covers I've done.

Pitchfork: What inspired you to use a soda can?

RB: Well, James doesn't drink, because he's Mormon. But he always hangs around drunk people and gives them rides home [laughs]. He's always drinking a Coke or an Ale-8, a regional Kentucky soft drink. So that made me think, this cover should just be a soda can. I wanted it to be like the first 10cc record with the big bubble letters. I've always loved that cover.

"I'm a fan of very warm, washed-out color palates.
If you put everything I've ever done on a grid,
it would look sort of yellowish-orange."

Pitchfork: This has a more a realistic look than most of your covers.

RB: I was going for that. A lot of 70s airbrush art has that weird, almost-could-be-real aspect to it. I actually measured a can and laid it out to exact dimensions in Illustrator. It might have been easier if I knew how to do 3D stuff in the computer-- I could have downloaded a can someone had already made and shaded it. But then it probably wouldn't end up looking the way it did.

Outer Space: Akashic Record [Spectrum Spools, 2012]

RB: I've tried to make covers for people that were this abstract before, but they've never really stuck. People usually want more concrete elements, A lot of the process for this wasn't actually working on the cover-- it was just talking to John Elliott (of Outer Space and Emeralds) about his ideas and inspirations for the record. His main two were the Challenger explosion and a young girl who was murdered when he was a kid in the town he grew up in. I made the cover mostly with collaged photographs of the explosion and the girl, heavily manipulated in Photoshop. Those are very big events and I didn't want to reference them too directly. I tried to convey them without being heavy-handed.

Pitchfork: The colors are very vivid-- how do you approach color in your art?

RB: Tweaking the colors is usually the last thing I do. I'm a fan of very warm, washed-out color palates. If you put everything I've ever done on a grid, it would look sort of yellowish-orange. Here I was going for an eerie, ghostly feel, almost like a holograph of a living room, or a domestic scene being torn apart by some other dimension. There's a wallpaper pattern, and a lamp in the middle you can make out if you look hard enough. So I basically made a scene and then destroyed and obscured it.

Eric Lanham: The Sincere Interruption [Spectrum Spools, 2012]

RB: There's a filmmaker named Paul Glabicki who does abstract geometric animation-- Eric's band Caboladies did a show at Northwestern University where they played a live soundtrack to one of his films. So I had his work in mind, and the way he uses abstract shapes. I wanted to have lots of movement on the cover, because the music is super dynamic but also very abstract.

"Often when I'm making a cover,
I view it as a still from a non-existent film."

Pitchfork: Do moving images influence your art?

RB: Yeah, animation and experimental film have influenced my visual aesthetic more than anything. There's a Polish filmmaker named Piotr Kamler, and his films blew my mind. They're stop motion, but there's also some airbrushed stuff, and some claymation-type stuff. It's really far out there-- I have no idea how he made some of it. That was a big influence on me when I started doing these airbrush-style covers.

Often when I'm making a cover, I view it as a still from a non-existent film. I'm a huge fan of Graphis, and they have a series of books that are just stills from commercials and animation and movies. I take so much from seeing stuff like that, where it's just one still and you have no idea what the final product is, but it's almost better than seeing the whole film.

Peaking Lights: Lucifer [Mexican Summer, 2012]

RB: The band sent me a sketch that was just simple cursive letters done on a diagonal, and they wanted it in blue neon. It's cool because I really like working with text, and I've always wanted to do a cover that was just text. It reminds me of those Cluster and Neu! records where there's just one word across the cover.

Pitchfork: Did they tell you why they wanted to do it this way?

RB: They wanted the word Lucifer to have its pre-Christian meaning-- Lucifer as humanist. Originally the back of the record was going to say "bringer of light," which I think is the original meaning of the word Lucifer. So they wanted it to have a light, airy feel, rather than the heavier imagery usually associated with that word. I've kind of been amazed at the great response to that one. It's so simple, and that's something I wish I could do more often. I think the cover for Eric's record is a good balance between complicated and simple. Sometimes I'll work on something for days and eventually start removing elements and end up getting something better. It's hard to find that balance.

AIDS Wolf: Ma Vie Banale Avant-Garde [Lovepump United, 2012]

RB: That one is almost all hand-drawn. I wish more people wanted that hand-drawn style. I've done a few covers that way; the cover of the Real Estate 7" was all hand-drawn. Some of the border elements for this one were done in Illustrator, but otherwise it's made of many drawings scanned in and then assembled and colored in the computer. I don't think people see my work as collage, but that's how I view everything that I do. I'm always bringing tons of different elements together and moving things around and adding things.

I was kind of shocked when AIDS Wolf asked me to do this cover, because they're amazing artists in their own right. They do great stuff with Seripop, and I've always been a big fan of their work, so it was a real honor. The idea I had was almost an abstract art gallery setting. The title translates to "My Boring Avant-Garde Life", so I thought, what's boring? Art galleries! So I made a room and then put a bunch of weird art on the walls.

"I like the idea of worlds colliding-- something ending up
somewhere that it doesn't belong."

Pitchfork: Why did you decide to put it all inside a frame?

RB: It's a reference to a distinct style of 70s book design, like some of the stuff that Milton Glaser and Seymour Chwast did with their group Pushpin. And I wanted it to be at odds with the music, because the music is so abstract and harsh and unruly. I wanted to have everything inside the frame be more inline with the music, and have the frame reign it all in.

Pitchfork: There seems to be a body part theme to this one.

RB: Yeah, when I do hand-drawn stuff, that tends to be the direction I go in. I feel like the next few covers I do I'll try to incorporate that stuff a bit more, just because I'm looking for ways to change what I'm doing. I feel like everyone wants something like what I did for Burning Star Core's Challenger [laughs]. I'm trying to move as far away from that as I can and still make everyone happy.

Raglani: Husk [Arbor, 2012]

RB: Joe's starting point for that was Pink Moon by Nick Drake, so I basically made my own version of that. We thought people would get the reference but I don't think anyone has yet (laughs). I didn't want it to be a direct reference, but I wanted to hint at that cover, which I've always loved and been confused and amazed by-- it's just so strange.

Pitchfork: Why did you put that little key at the bottom of the image?

RB: I wanted to have some references to actual objects. I think it's good to have something recognizable in with all these abstract elements, and I like the idea of worlds colliding-- something ending up somewhere that it doesn't belong. A key also suggests opening a gateway or a door, and I like to put these kinds of portals in my artwork-- holes opening up into other things so pieces from another place can come through. --Marc Masters